Conventional dispensing units are imprecise and difficult to properly align with the user's eyeball. As a result, eye drops are frequently improperly delivered. For example, eye drops may land on a user's cheek, eyebrow, or forehead. This can result in frustration for the user, cosmetic attention to remove the improperly delivered eye drops, and wasted fluid. With prescription eye drops in particular, this wasted fluid can affect the deliverable quantity of medicine and effectively raise the unit price of the medicine.
The above-listed problems may be particularly acute for elderly patients and those with compromised eyesight. A recent study indicated that only 71% of glaucoma patients were able to deliver eye drops into their eye, and only 39% of those patients did so without physically touching the bottle to the surface of the eye. As such, more efficient and practical ways of delivering eye drops would be desirable.